Selachophobia

Sharks reside at the top of my top three things to fear, mixed right in there with tornadoes and cockroaches. Because I never get into the water past my ankles, I have pretty effectively limited my shark encounters.

Every year Discovery has “Shark Week” and every year I do my best to avoid this channel. This year, however, I find myself morbidly obsessed with Shark Week. Last night I watched a show on tiger sharks. Well, I kept my eyes on my computer while the show played in my peripheral vision. Every once in a while I would mute the announcer and then rewind to watch the segment I just ignored! Isn’t DVR wonderful? I taped some other shark shows, but had to turn off the “Eaten Alive” show. Maybe I’ll be able to watch these shows, maybe not.

Such a fear might seem irrational, but I have a shark history which (in my terrified mind) justifies this phobia. Growing up on a tiny island in the Pacific, I was very aware of sharks lurking under the surface. When my father took me to work on another island when I was about 7 or 8, I went shark fishing and caught three little 3-foot sharks. There was this kitten there that was having fun poking at the dead sharks. I will never forget how the sharks continued to thrash and strike out *after death*. Ugh!

A few years later I was hanging out on a tiny little sand bar near our trailer, exposed only during low tide, when I noticed a tiny shark (maybe 2-ft long?) hanging out in the shallow water. It swam back and forth, following the curve of the beach line. I was terrified (this was shortly after “Jaws” had been released in theaters) and mesmerized. I don’t know how long I stood in the sand watching this creature move back and forth, but it was a long time!

Shortly after that encounter, I was hanging out with my friends at the family beach (Kwaj had a beach for families and one for the bachelors). I don’t remember if it was just a weekend day or a holiday. We left the beach and walked over to the other side of the shoal to watch the teenagers water ski. The float, about 50 yards off the shore, was empty. We were excited. This platform was off limits for us pre-teens, unless you had an older sibling who occasionally allowed you to enter the inner sanctum. It took us all of 30 seconds to dive in and swim over to the platform. We were out there, basking in our bold glory when a teenager on the shore biking by stopped to shout over to us… “Water skiing was shut down today because someone saw a shark”…. To this day, I don’t know if the teen was having some fun with us or if that was the real story. No matter, we all huddled together in the middle of the platform and discussed how to get back to shore. In the end we decided it would be best to take off as a group and swim together. It was the longest, most awkward, most frightening swim of my entire life…and the last time I swam in the ocean.

¡Hasta pronto, mis amigos!

~N